How to Restore Old Wood Floors With Black Tea

Black tea can clean your floor and restore the shine and wood grain to floorboards. While the technique works on all wood floors, old and worn floors get a vibrant boost from a tea treatment that really restores the gloss and grain of the wood. You can use any type of black tea you have around the house for a tea solution, but you cannot use instant tea or bottled iced tea.

Things You'll Need

Pot

5 bags black tea

Bowl

Rag

Squeeze mop

Put a pot with 1 quart of water on the stove and bring it to a boil to make your tea solution.

Sweep the floor thoroughly while the water heats. Remove all dirt and grime from your old wood floor. Also move furniture or rugs so you have no-fuss access to the floor. If you leave dust on the floor, you'll just push it into the wood when you apply the tea, creating a mess.

Add at least five black teabags to the water when it comes to a boil, and let them steep. Turn off the heat.

Pour your tea solution into a bowl and add 1 quart of cool water, which should cool down the tea solution enough so you won't burn yourself when applying it. If it's still too hot, wait until you can comfortably handle the tea.

Dip a cleaning rag into the tea, and then wring out any excess liquid before you apply the black tea to your old wood floor. Don't use so much that the floor is dripping or saturated, but do get an even covering. Work over the whole floor with the tea.

Wet a floor mop, and then squeeze out the extra water. Remove the tea from your floor by damp-mopping up the liquid.

Let the wood dry naturally.

Tips & Warnings

You can use up to 20 tea bags in your floor tea, so experiment with more than five until you find your magic number.